Ian Kerner, a sexuality counselor and New York Times best-selling author, blogs about sex on Thursdays on The Chart. Read more from him at his website, GoodInBed.

Not tonight, honey. I have a headache. How many times has a guy heard that before? Husbands around the world are all too familiar with being sexually rejected. But now, more than ever, those words, (or some variation), are being expressed by men, to their female partners. While the conventional wisdom has been that its usually the woman in the relationship who inevitably loses interest in sex, the opposite is often true. Low male desire is at all-time high, and is likely to occur for any number of reasons:

I will tell you that it can be very interesting to see the reaction of a woman when you tell her that you're not interested in having sex with her at that time.

Several years ago I dated a lady who invited me into her home after our third date. We sat around for a while in her living room talking. At which point she looked over at me and asked, quite directly... "Well, are you going to make a move on me or not?" I informed her that No, I was not intending on making "a move" on her that evening.

She was rather shocked and demanded to know why. I told her the same thing that I'd told her the first time sex had even come up, during our second date.... I don't believe casual sex is appropriate and don't engage in it. Sex is for long-term, committed relationships so far as I'm concerned.

The look of shock on her face was almost as if I'd told her that I didn't have a penis, or something to that effect. She all but bodily threw me out of her condo and told me that she didn't want to ever hear from or see me again, which at that point was fine with me.

I will tell you that it can be very interesting to see the reaction of a woman when you tell her that you're not interested in having sex with her at that time.

Several years ago I dated a lady who invited me into her home after our third date. We sat around for a while in her living room talking. At which point she looked over at me and asked, quite directly... "Well, are you going to make a move on me or not?" I informed her that No, I was not intending on making "a move" on her that evening.

She was rather shocked and demanded to know why. I told her the same thing that I'd told her the first time sex had even come up, during our second date.... I don't believe casual sex is appropriate and don't engage in it. Sex is for long-term, committed relationships so far as I'm concerned.

The look of shock on her face was almost as if I'd told her that I didn't have a penis, or something to that effect. She all but bodily threw me out of her condo and told me that she didn't want to ever hear from or see me again, which at that point was fine with me.

Porn. The Internet has made porn much more accessible - and the frequent masturbation it triggers may be making men too worn out for sex with a real partner. As Ive discussed before in this blog, men are masturbating 50 to 500 percent more than they would normally without Internet porn. So if a guy normally masturbated once a day, he might now be doing it two or three times a day. If he masturbated three times a week, he might now be getting graphic with his graphics 15 times a week. If youre 17 and single, this might not be a problem.

But if youre 40 and toting a gut, its an issue - a real issue. Some guys may still feel mentally like theyre 17 years old, but they cant have sex that way. Their bodies have changed and so have their refractory periods, the natural interval between erections. Guys with low desire may simply lack the mojo for real sex because theyre depleted from masturbation.

Porn. The Internet has made porn much more accessible - and the frequent masturbation it triggers may be making men too worn out for sex with a real partner. As Ive discussed before in this blog, men are masturbating 50 to 500 percent more than they would normally without Internet porn. So if a guy normally masturbated once a day, he might now be doing it two or three times a day. If he masturbated three times a week, he might now be getting graphic with his graphics 15 times a week. If youre 17 and single, this might not be a problem.

But if youre 40 and toting a gut, its an issue - a real issue. Some guys may still feel mentally like theyre 17 years old, but they cant have sex that way. Their bodies have changed and so have their refractory periods, the natural interval between erections. Guys with low desire may simply lack the mojo for real sex because theyre depleted from masturbation.

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